Week 1 Review

Some quick thoughts after the 1^st week of the college football season.

Michigan is improved, but Harbaugh still has a lot of work to do.  Last year the Wolverines lost at home to Utah 26-10, with the Utes scoring the final 16 points for the win.  Michigan lost this year, but put up a fight the whole way.  Losing 24-17 on the road and were a recovered onside kick away from making the game REAL interesting.

Utah could be really good if they found some more play makers on the offensive side of the ball.  Devontae Booker is the only threat the Utes have and he is a good one, but they need more.  Booker carried the ball 22 times and scored on the ground.  He also was their leading receiver with 7 catches in week 1 vs Michigan.

TCU got a road win versus a Power 5 team, but they didn’t look very impressive in doing so.  It is just one game, but the Horned Frogs couldn’t finish drives and had to settle for field goals on too many drives.  They certainly didn’t look like what you would expect from the 2^nd best team in the country.

Duke and David Cutcliffe have found their quarterback.  Cutcliffe has been a quarterback guru everywhere he has coached but has yet to find one at Duke, until now.  Thomas Sirk made his debut with the Blue Devils Thursday night against Tulane and the junior QB was 27-40 for 289 and 2 scores.  He also ran the ball 15 times for 68 yards.

New Baylor QB Seth Russell throws a really nice ball; he has great touch on the deep ball.  It is only a 1 game sample, but it looks like the Baylor offense won’t miss much with Russell stepping in for Bryce Petty.  Russell actually adds a little more athleticism to the quarterback position for the Bears.

Hawaii and Colorado was a perfect example of why a preseason game in college football is not a terrible idea.  The two quarterbacks combined to go 42-78 and just 360 yard.  It also had 18 punts, 14 penalties and five turnovers and was utterly unwatchable.

Stop FCS games!  Yes every year you get teams like Washington State and Kansas that lose to the FCS, but you also get games like Georgia Tech beating Alcorn State 69-6 with GT running for 476 yards and Ole Miss beating Tennessee-Martin 76-3 which included a 55-0 lead and Mississippi THROWING a touchdown pass in the 4^th quarter.  Those games need to stop.

Continue playing on the road against Group of 5 teams if you are a Power 5 team.  It creates the chance of upsets and it immediately gives these lower level FBS teams a showcase home game that the players and fans can look forward to.  In the opening week only we saw teams like Temple beat Penn State at home.  Western Michigan playing with in-state foe Michigan State into the 4^th quarter and Central Michigan leading Oklahoma State in the 2^nd half before falling short.  Those games are great for the little guys and a real challenge for the big boys.  A win-win for everybody.

Malik Zaire is fun to watch run Brian Kelly’s offense at Notre Dame.  It seems to be pretty clear why Everett Golson transferred out of Notre Dame, because he was good, but Zaire has the potential to do some special things for the Irish this season.  Zaire went 19-22 for 313 and 3 scores in the opener against Texas.

Notre Dame is either really good or Texas is absolutely awful.  It reality it is probably somewhere in between.  Charlie Strong is in year 2 of a huge rebuild at Texas, so nobody expected a CFB Playoff bid, but I would imagine that the fan-base didn’t expect the worst loss to open the season since 1988 (@BYU 47-6).

I loved watching the aggressive play and play-calling of the Temple defense against Penn State.  Temple is a team that is full of players that didn’t get recruited by Penn State and despite being overmatched at almost every position that didn’t change their style of play and it paid off, limiting Penn State to just 54 yards in their final 12 drives of the game.

The Penn State offensive line is awful.  I really like Christian Hackenberg and I would love to see what he could do if his O-Line could keep him clean, but that doesn’t look like it will happen in his time at Penn State.  Hackenberg was sacked 10 times by Temple on Saturday.  Some are thinking that Hackenberg could be the top QB selected in next year’s NFL draft.  That will only happen if he survives this season.

Oregon lost the Heisman Trophy winner and 2^nd overall pick in quarterback Marcus Mariotta, yet the Ducks didn’t miss a beat in their 61-42 win over Eastern Washington.  Oregon racked up 731 yards and 34 first downs on offense.  That includes running for 485 and 6 touchdowns.  They also didn’t lose their quick score attach either.  All of the Ducks scoring drives were under 3 minutes except their final score in the 4^th quarter, that one lasted 3:20.

Tons of stars lost for the season already in just one week.  Quarterbacks Taysom Hill (BYU) and Terrel Hunt (Syracuse), running backs Tarean Folston (Notre Dame) and James Conner (Pitt) and defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes (UCLA) are all highly regarded players that are done for the season already due to injuries.  We also have All-American linebacker Scooby Wright from Arizona, safety Mike Caputo from Wisconsin, wide receiver Mike Williams from Clemson and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Brewer out for a considerable amount of time with lesser injuries.

Will Muschamp joining the coaching staff at Auburn is a very good thing.  We all know that Gus Malzahn knows offense and can put up some points, but now he has a defense behind it.  Muschamp, the former Florida head coach has always been a great defensive mind and now he able to focus on just that.  In the opener versus Louisville, Auburn scored 1 defensive touchdown on an 82 yard fumble return in the 1^st half and set up another one with a 35 yard interception return in the 2^nd half.  Auburn jumped out to a 24-0 3^rd quarter lead before Louisville final got on the scoreboard.

Alabama’s running game is crazy good.  The Tide have had guys like Eddie Lacy and Mark Ingram in recent years, but Derrick Henry might be the best of the bunch.  Henry ran for 147 on 13 carries and 3 scores against Wisconsin on Saturday.  His back up Kenyan Drake ran 10 times for 77 yards and a score.  He also had 2 catches for 48 yards.  This 1-2 punch from Alabama is as good as we have seen from the Crimson Tide.

High Octane is illegal in Houston, TX.  Arizona State and the Fighting Todd Graham’s had only 291 yards of offense (3.55 ypp) and two turnovers against Texas A&M Saturday.  Of the Fighting Todd Graham’s 1^st 12 drives, they punted 9 times, fumbled twice and scored just one touchdown.

I still love watching Todd Graham lose.  I don’t think that will change any time soon either.

I love watching Penn State lose.  I know that won’t change any time soon.

Hail Mary conversions are fun. 

West Coast teams should never be forced to play noon EST.  Stanford played Northwestern at Noon.  The players woke up at 4:30 to try to make up for the time difference and prepare for the game, it didn’t help.  The Cardinal looked sluggish from the get go.  They finished the game with just 2 field goals and only 240 yards of total offense.  They also turned the ball over twice.

Baker Mayfield showed why he was named the starter for the Oklahoma Sooners after camp.  Mayfield threw for 388 yards and 3 scores in his collegiate debut.  He also ran for another touchdown.  He unseated Trevor Knight who was the returning starter, who accounted for over 3,100 yards and 30 touchdowns in his 1^st 2 years at OU.

Josh Rosen looks to be the real thing at UCLA.  The #1 rated quarterback out of high school last year won the starting job at UCLA in fall camp and impressed in his debut.  Rosen threw for 351 and 3 touchdowns, going 28 of 35 in a 34-16 win over Virginia.

Ohio State looked pretty impressive in their opener.  After the Buckeyes got things going they looked unstoppable, and remember they were playing without 4 starters that were suspended.  I still am not sure that Cardale Jones is the best option for the Urban Meyer offense, but he also isn’t a bad option to have.  With their toughest game out of the way, if Ohio State loses at any point in the season it would be a huge upset.

RANDOM RANTING

VOLUNTEERED ROBBERY
As many people have heard, three Tennessee football players were arrested and charged in part with an armed robbery that occurred around 2:00 early Thursday morning at an off-campus gas station. That is not the story. That is no big deal. It is the SEC, Lane Kiffin will probably suspend them for the National Anthem.

The story is about one of the victims, Corey Zickefoose. This man had a gun stuck in his face during the robbery, but thinks the robbers should get off easy. Here is what he has to say, "I think they should still be able to play football, regardless. Tennessee is my place. It's my football team." When asked if he believed this despite having a gun pointed in his face by one of the robbers he added, "Yeah, it's Tennessee. That's the way it is sometimes,"

You have got to check this guy out!

Lane Kiffin and Vols need to hook this kids up with some season tickets!

THE NUMBERS DON’T LIE
While watching the Sunday Sports Showdown last Sunday on KDKA-TV and I heard a very interesting stat about Penn State football given by Paul Zeise. The stat was that Penn State is just 5-20 against Iowa, Ohio State and Michigan in the past 10 years. This stunned me, and it was followed up with the fact that they are just 5-10 in non-conference games vs BCS records that finished with a winning record in that same span. So, Penn State is just 10-30 against good competition over the last 10 years. That got me thinking, and researching, to find other surprising numbers that people may not be aware of regarding some of the top profile teams in the country.

I tried to choose 1 or 2 schools from each of the 6 BCS conferences, here is what I found out.
FLORIDA:
A lot is always made about teams and how they schedule their non-conference portion of their schedule. Somehow, it seems to be overlooked each year that Florida does play road non-conference games, and the ones they do play, they don’t have to travel very far to get to. The Gators have not played a non-conference game outside the state of Florida in 18 seasons. The last time Florida went on the road to play a non-conference game was September 21, 1991 and they lost in the Carrier Dome to Syracuse 38-21.

ALABAMA:
To be the best you have to beat the best, sometimes at least. Alabama, since 2000 is just 4-21 against teams that finished the season with double digit wins including losing the final two games of the season last year to Utah and Florida, both of whom finished with 13 wins on the season.

LSU:
Not as bad as Alabama against winning teams but LSU isn’t beating many powerhouses either, in conference play at least. Over the past 20 years the Tigers are just 7-31 against fellow SEC teams that went on to win 10+ games that season.

GEORGIA:
What’s the old saying, “It’s not a rivalry unless both teams win.” Well apparently Georgia is running short on rivals. If you would ask a Bulldog fan to name their two biggest rivals, they would probably say Florida and Tennessee. In the past 20 years Georgia has won only 10 of the 40 games played against those schools.

OHIO STATE:
Going from the SEC to the Big Ten this seems like the best transition to make, Ohio State has not beaten a team from the SEC since September of 1988. That is right, it has been 21 seasons since the Buckeyes have beaten a school from the SEC. The win occurred September 24, 1988 in a 36-33 win over LSU. That is also the Buckeyes only win versus a SEC team.

MICHIGAN:
The Wolverines haven’t fared much better against their rivals than Georgia. Michigan is 2-8 the past 10 games against Notre Dame and Ohio State and in the past 23 seasons, they have swept their rivals just four times.

NOTRE DAME:
As we all know Notre Dame is pretty much just like any other school in college football, the mystique is gone, although they would never want you to know that. Look at some of these numbers regarding whom Notre Dame plays (and beats). In the past 10 years, Notre Dame has won 69 games; only 26 of those wins came against teams with winning records. The average record of those 69 opponents was 5-6. The Irish have lost 8 straight games to teams with 10+ wins and are just 5-21 in the past 10 seasons against 10-win teams. In the past three seasons, they are 0-6 vs ranked teams and 3-16 against teams with winning records.

CINCINNATI:
Cincinnati is new to this winning thing, so these number may not surprised you, but for a team that is in the Top 5 they are pretty interesting. In the past 10 years Cincinnati is 3-12 against non-conference BCS opponents. Two of those three wins have come against Oregon State over the past three seasons.

PITT:
Being a Pitt fan is difficult; they seem to always lose at least one game every year to an inferior opponent. Well maybe it seems that way because it is 100% true. Pitt has lost at least one game for the past 9 seasons to a team that finished with a losing record. That streak looks like it will stay in tact as the Panthers only loss this season was against 4-5 NC State.

WEST VIRGINIA:
What is the toughest place to play in the Big East? West Virginia. WRONG! A crazy misconception is that playing in Morgantown tough. A hostile environment, yes, but a tough place to win, you may want to reconsider. WVU has lost at least 1 home game every year since 1994. In that span they have lost 13 home games in the last half of the season, when the wins are the most important. So far this season the Mountaineers are 6-0 at home with just one game remaining. WVU hosts Pitt Nov 27th, the last time they hosted the Panthers, Pitt knocked them out of the National Championship game upsetting the #2 Mountaineers in the final game of the regular season.

VIRGINIA TECH:
This one might be a stretch and maybe a little misleading because VT has been so good recently. Of the Hokies last 12 losses, 10 of them came from teams that had a worse record then them.

TEXAS:
The Longhorns and Oklahoma have pretty much been the class of the Big XII since the conference started in 1996. Since that time, Texas has a losing record to only two Big XII foes. One is Oklahoma, who is 6-5 versus the Longhorns. The other is Kansas State. That’s right the Kansas State Wildcats are the 2nd most successful team against Texas since the inception of the Big XII conference. K-State is 4-2 against the Longhorns.

OKLAHOMA:
Sooner fans get on Bob Stoops for not winning the big bowl games, but let’s not stop with just bowl games. Stoops has struggled against every team that is not in the Big XII. Since 2003, the Bob Stoops led Sooners have lost just 19 games. 9 of those games have come against Big XII opponents in 58 games. However, in just 32 nonconference games the Sooners have lost 10 times.

Enjoy your great weekend of college football!

BCS TITLE PREVIEW

#1 OKLAHOMA SOONERS

vs

#2 FLORIDA GATORS

I would first like to say that I think it is a real shame that college football does not have a tournament to decide its champion like EVERY other sport does. I would love to see Utah, USC, Texas, Oklahoma and Florida fight it out on the field rather then a bunch of computers crunching numbers to decide who should play in the National Title.

On to the game.

Although I think that Texas in particular got jobbed and should be playing in this game, I will say that after the last week of the season the two best teams in the country were Oklahoma and Florida, so at least the BCS got that much right. This games pits SEC vs Big XII. Tebow vs Bradford. Stoops vs Meyer.

OKLAHOMA WITH THE BALL:
OU has scored more points this season than any other school in D1 history. The Sooners use a spread set with a hurry up mentality. This offense is all based on the efficiency of QB Sam Bradford, who threw for 48 TDs and just 6 INTs this season. The Sooners will be missing RB DeMarco Murray who tore his hamstring in the Big XII Championship game against Missouri, but will have Chris Brown to replace him. Although Murray was listed as the starter on the team Brown actually led the Sooners with 1,110 yards on the ground this year and 20 TDs. The Sooners also use the hurry up to keep the defenses from making personnel changes to match-up against the Oklahoma four and five receiver sets. Bradford has completed 30 or more passes to five different OU players and ten different players have caught touchdown passes. OU has averaged a play every 23 seconds on offense. The numbers are mind-boggling, take a look:
TOTAL OFFENSE – ranked 3rd nationally
7.05 yards per play
562.08 yards per game
PASSING OFFENSE – 3rd
9.74 yards per attempt
356.6 yards per game
49 touchdowns
7 interceptions
RUSHING OFFENSE – 18th
4.77 yards per carry
205.54 yards per game
45 touchdowns
SCORING – 1st
54.00 points per game
5 straight games of 60+ points

OKLAHOMA ON DEFENSE:
It is somewhat interesting that Bob Stoops is considered a defensive minded coach. He was a defensive coordinator for Steve Spurrier at Florida and his defenses when he first arrived at OU were spectacular, but recently he has left a lot to be desired. The Sooners rush the passer well, averaging over three sacks per game, but then that they won’t show up in the top 40 nationally in any defensive categories. This however can be misleading. The Big XII offensives are all so high powered that the defenses in the conference naturally will have high averages than most. There are five Big XII offenses in the top nine of overall offenses in the nation. The biggest thing that this OU team does on defense is it gives the high-powered offense a short field repeatedly. The Sooners forced 32 turnovers this season (15 fumbles, 17 INTs).

OKLAHOMA ON SPECIAL TEAMS:
The Sooners rank 5th in the nation in kickoff returns, but that is one place they will miss DeMarco Murray. He was their big threat returning kicks. With him gone it is not as dangerous to kick it deep to either Chris Brown or WR Juaquin Iglesias, both who returned kicks after Murray was injured. The kicking coverage is a different story. The Sooners have allowed five kicks to be returned for touchdowns this season, more than any other team. In a game that may come down to field position and who forces the other team to go longer for their touchdowns OU punting situation is not good. The OU punter Mike Knall averages just over 33 yards per kick, and the returners are only getting about 8 yards a try.

FLORIDA WITH THE BALL:
What more can be said about Tim Tebow and what he does for the Gators offense? Tebow has run for over 500 yards (3rd on the team) and passed for over 2,500 yards. If you thought Bradford’s TD to INT ratio was good, how about 28 TDs and just 2 picks all season for Tebow. Plus all the weapons that Urban Meyer has put on the field with him. Percy Harvin, who injured his ankle against Florida State and missed the SEC Title game, will not be 100% but will still play. He is probably the single most dangerous player in all of college football when he touches the ball. He has accounted for over 500 yards in both rushing and receiving and scored 16 touchdowns on top of that. Get this, he has 61 rushing attempts this season and has only been tackled behind the line on scrimmage three times. The team speed that the Gators have is what really separates them from every other team in the nation. On offense you have WR’s like Louis Murphy and Harvin as well as hybrid style players like Chris Rainey and Jeffery Demps that can just flat out fly. Teams cannot run with these guys in one-on-one coverage, and that lets Tebow pick apart zone defenses. The Gators scored 40 or more in five straight games this season against SEC teams, that had never been done before.

FLORIDA ON DEFENSE:
This is the place where the game will be won or lost. The Florida defense will be bigger, stronger and most importantly faster at every position then any team the Sooners have faced this year. Florida will challenge the big OU line with their aggressive pass rush, but for the most part will do that with only their four down linemen. The Gators will not be afraid to match up in single coverage with OU, even with their linebackers, because of their speed. The Gators are very young on defense. They start 1 freshman, 7 sophomores and 3 juniors, so they will have to be very disciplined because this will also be the best offense that Florida has faced this year. The Gators rank in the top 15 in every defensive category, check out the numbers:
RUSH DEFENSE – 15th
3.33 yards per carry
105.3 yards per game
PASS EFFICIENCY DEFENSE – 2nd
10 touchdowns allowed
24 interceptions
TOTAL DEFENSE – 7th
4.40 yards per play
279.31 yards per game
SCORING DEFENSE – 4th
12.8 points per game
19 touchdowns allowed
1 team has scored over 20 points since loss to Ole Miss Sept 27th
TURNOVER MARGIN – 2nd
+22 for the season

FLORIDA SPECIAL TEAMS:
I give a big edge to the Florida special team units and I predict a score for the Gator special teams in this game. The return men are all very dangerous and the kicker has only missed two kicks all season

IF OKLAHOMA WINS THE DIFFERENCE MAKER WILL BE…
Tight End Jermaine Gresham. I know it seems odd to select a TE to be the difference maker in a game packed full of speedy playmakers, but nobody has been able to stop Gresham this season. His size (6’6”, 261) makes him a tough match up for everyone. If the Gators can get away with using a linebacker on him then they win this battle, but if he is running up against guys in that secondary, good luck bringing him down.

IF FLORIDA WINS THE DIFFERENCE MAKER WILL BE…
The defensive line. All season Sam Bradford has been able to sit in the pocket and pick apart defenses, if the Gators can get to him and put him on the move or hurry a few throws it might be enough to throw off the timing of that OU offense.

PREDICTION

I think both teams are going to have success moving the ball, but I think that the difference in the game will be the overall speed of the Florida secondary and skill players. They will give the Sooners something they have not seen all year. I expect it to be close throughout the first half with Florida ahead by 3-7 points, but I expect Florida to pour it on in the second half and win their second title in three years rather easily. FLORIDA 45, OKLAHOMA 24